God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs
by RavenclawConspiracy
Summary: Luna doesn't like to dance in Order of the Phoenix. She dances in Deathly Hallows. Ever wonder why?
1. The rest of the party

Summary: Luna doesn't like to dance in Order of the Phoenix. She dances in Deathly Hallows. Ever wonder why?

Universe: Canon, at the end of chapter 15 of Half-Blood Prince, after Harry's just spied on Snape and Draco during Slughorn's Halloween party.

**The rest of the party**

After a few minutes, Harry returned to the party. He had to tell Hermione about Malfoy refusing to tell Snape what he was doing. He spotted the back of Luna's head and rushed over.

She was talking to Cormac McLaggen. He walked up behind her and waited for her to finish. "...which is how they find each other, you see. They can see the reflections from their ears on the bottom of the surface of the water."

McLaggen looked exasperated. Harry knew how McLaggen felt, but considering that Hermione had earlier been subject to large amounts of Quidditch talk, which she wasn't interested in, he felt that McLaggen deserved having to put up with Luna's strange ramblings about animals that probably didn't exist.

But she had finished, so he opened his mouth to talk. Before he could say anything, Luna said "Hello, Harry." without turning around.

"Hi. Er, how did you know it was me?" Harry asked.

"I can see your reflection in the window, just like a dabberblimp." She pointed. "I was just telling Cormac here. He wanted to talk about Quidditch, but I wanted to talk about dabberblimps, and he was too polite to interrupt when I kept talking." Harry looked and saw her reflection looking at him. It smiled at him.

"Have you seen Hermione?" he asked them both.

Luna said, "Not since you left."

But McLaggen said, annoyed, "Yeah, she said she was tired and going to bed. I don't know why she came to this thing, or invited me."

Luna said vaguely, "Well, she was trying to make Ron annoyed by inviting someone else, and she thought you were the most annoying person she could find."

Harry had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. McLaggen stared at her for a second, mouth open, and spun on his heels and marched off.

Luna stared at McLaggen's back as he left, then turned to Harry and said, worried. "Oh, you don't think he thought that I meant that he was annoying, do you? I just meant that Hermione thought that, not me. I thought he was polite. I did say that he was polite, right?"

Harry, still grinning, said, "Oh, I'm sure he knew what you meant." She smiled, and Harry was struck with an idea. "Would you like to dance?"

She frowned, "No. I don't like to dance.".

Harry vaguely remembered her saying something like that when he first met her a year and a half ago, on the Hogwarts Express. At that time, he'd just met her, so hadn't commented. But now, if he had been asked to pick among all his friends the one _most_ likely to enjoy dancing, it would have been Luna, who, now that he knew who she was, he often spotted wandering around humming and twirling.

Maybe she meant she didn't know how to dance formally, he'd certainly been worried about that two years ago at the Yule ball, but glancing around, he saw only a few people were doing that. The Christmas music didn't really lead itself to that, and most couples were just moving back and forth to the music.

So he asked, "Why not?"

For a split second, her silver eyes seemed to fill with tears, but she blinked and they was gone. "I-I don't want to..." She thought for a second. "But this is a party. And I'm here, and people are supposed to dance at parties. And it's not really the same..." she trailed off, looking at her feet.

Then she looked up, and normal cheerful Luna was back. "Yes, I would like to dance with you." She extended her hand, and Harry looked at it for a second before it registered he was supposed to take it.

He reluctantly did so, not understanding what was going on. He lead her out to the dance floor, where the band was just winding down the last song. Harry hoped if they started a waltz or something that he remember enough from the Yule Ball from two years ago to dance in some reasonable manner, although if Luna didn't dance she'd probably never know the difference, and suspected she wouldn't care if he danced poorly anyway.

She'd probably _tell_ him he couldn't dance, but she wouldn't care in the slightest. It was nice not having any pressure for once.

The band started in with a Christmas tune, and he reached out to take her other hand, but she yanked it away before he could.

Startled, he looked into her face. She had a horrified expression on it, and before he could ask her anything, she slipped out of his other hand and ran out of the party.

Harry stood there, blinking, as people turned to look at him. He was aware that they probably thought he'd done or said something rude, but he really didn't care. He'd never seen Luna upset before. He'd seen her a little annoyed when Hermione insulted the Quibbler, but that was about it.

He couldn't imagine what she had been upset at. It couldn't be him reaching for her hand, that didn't make sense, and he hadn't even started to dance yet, the music have just started.

Had she gotten upset at the music? He realized the song was an instrumental version of _God rest ye merry, gentlemen_, and was reminded of Sirius, last Christmas, singing in parody, _God rest ye merry, hippogriffs_ to Buckbeak.

Luna had been there for him after Sirius had been killed, and he was going to be there for her now, whatever had upset her. He ran out after her.


	2. Really my friend

**Really my friend**

He spotted Luna headed towards the stairs up. He thought for a second she was headed to the Ravenclaw dorms, in Ravenclaw Tower, which he believed you got into from the seventh floor, same as Gryffindor. But at the top of the stairs, she turned the wrong way for either Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, and ducked down another hall. The only thing he knew was this way was the Room of Requirement.

Sure enough, once she passed its the location, she turned around to run back up past it, which you have to do three times to get in. She pulled up short when she noticed him running up behind her.

"Uh, hello, Harry." she said. "I decided to..." She smiled sadly at him.

Harry thought about what he knew about Luna, "To be alone." He wanted to explain that she didn't have to be alone all the time, that she had friends she could talk to.

"Yes." She looked down. "If I went back to the dorm now, the other girls would ask all sorts of questions about how our 'date' went, despite the fact I told them we were just friends. I hadn't realized it when you asked me, but apparently a lot of other girls were hoping you would go with them,and seemed mad you asked me. So I didn't want to go back there, and the Room of Requirement was the first place I thought of."

"I know that, that's why I asked you."

Luna looked confused. "You asked me because other people wanted you to ask them?"

"I asked you because I didn't want to go with a date. I wanted to go with a friend." Harry explained.

"But your friends were busy?"

Harry said, "Luna. Luna, look at me, because I'm tired of explaining this." She did so. "You are a friend of mine. I know we don't hang out much, because you're in another House and another year. But you, Luna Lovegood, are really my friend."

"You think I'm boring when I talk about animals."

Harry almost denied it. But Luna had an ability to see the truth about people, despite the fact she believed total nonsense. He'd never met such a contradictory person in his life, but knew that lying to Luna wouldn't work.

So instead he said, "Yes. But you've never seen me and Ron study History of Magic with Hermione. Sometimes we're so bored we fall asleep, like we do in the actual class." He thought for a second. "And Hermione is the same way when me and Ron start talking about Quidditch, although she usually just buries her nose in a book."

Luna seemed perplexed, "But if Ron and Hermione think each other are boring, why are they in love?"

Harry blinked, "First, for everyone's sake, it would be very nice if you never, ever, ever mention that in front of either of them, please? If you tell people in love that they are in love, when they refuse to admit it to themselves, they sometimes...react strangely."

She tilted her head. "They don't admit it because they're both afraid the other will reject them. I don't understand how they can love each other but not know how much the other loves them."

Harry was slightly relieved to have someone he could talk about his complete annoyance with Ron and Hermione's refusal to admit their feelings for each other, and their behavior due to that. He didn't really feel comfortable talking to Ginny about it, because she was Ron's sister, and Hermione's close friend, and because of his own feelings about Ginny. "I know, it's driving me crazy. At this point, I'm hoping I'll walk into the Room of Requirement and find them making out, because it's getting a little absurd."

But none of that was really relevant to this conversation, so he summed up. "But I can't say anything, because that will just cause them to deny everything, and make things worse. So just...don't say anything, okay?"

He thought for a second, suddenly paranoid. "In fact, it's best if you don't point out how people are feeling to themselves, because it's usually not helpful. Either they already admit that to themselves, and don't need to know, or they have decided that how they feel isn't real, and don't want to know. If you see what I mean?"

She said, "People are strange, but I think you're right. I won't say anything in front of them. It's like a Blibbering Humdinger, you can't see them when you look at them, you can only see them when you aren't looking at them."

Harry ignored whatever that was a reference to and continued, "Right. Thanks. Where was I?"

Luna looked up at the ceiling for a second and recounted. "You were listing responses to my question asking why Ron and Hermione were in love if they bored each other. You listed just one, but the intent was clearly for there to be more, because you said 'first' at the start."

Harry blinked at that.

She seemed to realize that hadn't helped. "And that question from me was in response to you saying they bored each other. I believe that was an attempt to convince me that friends could bore each other and be friends, although you didn't get to that point before I distracted you with my question about Ron and Hermione."

He blinked more at that. Sometimes he wondered exactly how Luna's brain worked.

Luna, meanwhile, had said, "That was because I questioned your statement that we were friends, pointing out you thought I was boring. And you had said we were friends because I asked if your friends were busy, because you said you didn't want to go on a date with one of the girls who wanted to go with-"

He interrupted, "Yes, thanks.", tried to recapture his train of thought before she rewound the entire conversation back to the start. How could she remember all that? "I mean, I'm not sure what I was talking about, but yes, sometimes friends, and even people in love, bore each other, sometimes, and you and I are friends even if you do that. You feel free to bore me, and I will ignore you, and then later I can bore you and you can ignore me."

"And I did invite you to this party..." Harry realized in trying to regain the conversation, he'd forgotten he was standing in the hallway. He pointed down vaguely towards Slughorn's office. "Er, to the party down there." He correctly the direction as he tried to figure out how that floor mapped to this one. No, you had to go down the hall and turn right and then loop around to get there, but that lead you almost back to the...no, that couldn't be right, because that would put Slughorn's office on the Forbidden Forest side of the castle, which it clearly wasn't when you looked out the window at the lake...

Harry gave up, as he always did when trying to figure out the layout of this school, and continued. "But believe be, there's no one I'd rather be here, I mean, down there, with. Even if you bore me."

Luna gave a real smile. "Thank you, although I think you'd rather to be there with Ginny." Her eyes widened. "Oh no, and right after you said not to-." She stopped and clasped her hand to her mouth.

Once again, Harry wondered how Luna always knew exactly what was going on with other people. He nodded sheepishly and looked down. "Don't worry, I've already figured that I like Ginny, although I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her. And you're right, she would be my first choice, she is who I'm interested in dating."

He looked Luna in the eyes again. "Which is why I didn't want a different date, so I asked you, my _friend_. That is what friends do, go to parties as friends with each other when they don't have dates."

There, he'd finally managed to get to where he was going, even if he taken a very large number of detours even for a Luna conversation.

Luna mumbled that Harry didn't catch.

He leaned forward and said, "What?"

"I said, I'm not a very good friend, then." She looked at him with her silver eyes. "I ran out in the middle of the party."

"Ah, but do you know what else friends do?" he asked.

"Dance with each other at parties?" she asked, sadly staring at him.

"What? No. That's not where I was going." Harry sputtered. He didn't understand how Luna could be so smart and yet so clueless. "Friends see when other friends are upset, and talk to each other about what has upset them."

Luna stared at him, and he had no idea what she was thinking.

"I didn't mean to upset you when I asked you to dance. I didn't even really want to dance, I just thought you might. You seemed to be the sort of person who would want to dance. If you don't want to dance, we don't have to." Harry said, lamely.

She kept staring at him. Harry was starting to think it was unfair that Luna could somehow figure out whatever everyone else thought, and remember exactly what everyone was talking about, but he could never figure out what was going on inside her. How was he supposed to help her when he couldn't understand her?

"Or we can talk here, or we can call it an evening and go back to our dorms. I just saw you were upset, and you helped me when I was upset, so I thought I could help-" He stopped, because Luna had just turned and walked away.


	3. God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs

**God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs**

Harry debated following her, but she immediately turned back around and he realized she was walking back and forth to activate the Room of Requirement. He watched her for a second, and the door to the Room popped into existence.

"Let me show you something." Luna said.

Harry followed her into the Room. Luna had picked a smaller configuration than the DA room, one about the size of his bedroom at the Dursley's. It had two chairs facing each other, and to the left of one of them, an old hand-cranked record player, with a large metal horn coming out the top shaped somewhat like a flower. It had a record already on it.

Luna sat down and looked at the other chair, and Harry sat there. She tapped the record player with her wand, and the needle lifted up and positioned itself about a third of the way through the record, and a song started playing, in a distinctive booming voice that Harry had never heard before. But he had certainly heard the song.

_God rest ye merry, hippogriffs, let no one you offend._

_For if they do you will attack those who condescend._

_To keep you all from biting us we bring you all as friends._

_O tidings of comfort and joy,_

_comfort and joy,_

_O tidings of comfort and joy._

_On mountain peak in forest deep, a phoenix can be found._

_You live forever but you now are old and brown._

_We bring you all these words until your youth can come around_

_O tidings of comfort and joy,_

_comfort and joy,_

_O tidings of comfort and joy._

_Shrinking in the corner, a moke hides in the room_

_Shy as violets, we will hurt you, that you do assume_

_But now we give you these words instead of your expected doom_

_O tidings of comfort and joy,_

_comfort and joy,_

_O tidings of comfort and joy._

Luna tapped the record player with her wand and the music cut off. Harry was astonished. He had thought that Sirius had made up those words last Christmas for Buckbeak.

He was about to ask Luna about it, but noticed that her eyes were filled with tears. He put any questions about Sirius out of his mind and asked, "What's wrong?"

"My family had this record, dad bought it for mum after they got married, she was a fan of the Hobgoblins while they were dating. Although I think this was their last record and it's not very good. But each Christmas we would dance to it. My father, my mother, and me. Not holding-hands dancing like couples do, like what you wanted to do, but jumping around and waving our arms and just having fun. The last thing I-the second to last thing I remember about her is dancing with her to this song. She died two weeks later." Luna tapped the record player with her wand and it stopped.

Harry had never seen Luna so unsure of what she was saying before. He refrained from asking what Luna's last memory of her mother was. She could see thestrals, he _knew_ what that memory had to involve.

She smiled at him. "So I didn't want to dance in the first place, and when that song came on..."

Harry nodded. Now, how to get her talking about it? He did some quick math. Last year, shortly before the DA had been caught and disbanded, Ginny had mentioned that Luna had a birthday, and he had wished her happy birthday. So she was almost exactly a year younger than Ron, which made her fifteen now, so if she was nine at Christmas-

"So, six years ago in three weeks?" he asked, and she nodded. "That must make Christmas..." He trailed off, unsure where to go from there.

"Sad." She looked at him. "I don't know why you should help me with this. It must sound silly. You lost both your parents, and your godfather. I just lost my mother."

Harry was on surer ground here, "Luna, I don't remember my parents. So I didn't really lose them, I didn't-I didn't ever have them to start with. They were always absent."

"Doesn't that make it worse? Not remembering?" Luna asked, still looking at him.

Harry shook his head. "I guess in some sense, but not really. You only miss things when you've had them. I wish they were here, I wish I knew them, but that's just how things are, that's how they're always been. It's Sirius that I really miss."

Luna looked at the record player. "I don't want to not remember her. After-after the accident, after I woke up and got out of hospital, they offered to Obliviate it from my memory. I wouldn't let them. I didn't want to forget anything about her."

Harry hadn't realized she had been injured in the same accident that killed her mother, but that wasn't the thing to focus on right now. He tried bringing the topic back around the start. "But you won't dance?"

Luna looked at him, slightly confused. "I don't want to forget her."

Harry thought about the absurd song Luna had just played. He realized he wanted to play it for Christmas this year to remember Sirius. "If she liked dancing, if she liked dancing with you, I think maybe you have it backwards." Harry said. "Dancing doesn't mean you forget, dancing means you remember."

Luna stared at him for a second, and then smiled. "I didn't think of that. Thank you, Harry."

And Harry suddenly had a flash of Luna-like level of intuition, and realized that Luna wasn't really okay, she had just said she was because she didn't want to think about it. So he brought up something else instead.

He pointed at the record player. "No, thank you, Luna. You just reminded me of my favorite memory of Sirius, when I heard him singing this song last Christmas."

Luna frowned. "Harry, after Ginny told me he was your godfather, I did some research. The Quibbler was wrong, he wasn't Stubby Boardman." She looked a little unhappy admitting the Quibbler had made a mistake. "Stubby Boardman had been singing since 1965, so unless Sirius started a singing career when he was a small child, or Stubby started Hogwarts when he was 25 or so, they can't be the same person, even if they look alike."

Now it was Harry's turn to be confused. "What?"

Luna looked at him, even more confused in response. "What do you mean, what? You said you heard this record last Christmas?" She spun the record around so it oriented where he could read it. Harry leaned over and read 'Stubby Boardman and the Hobgoblins' curved across the top, and 'I Saw The Snidgets On Christmas Day' across the bottom.

Harry said, "What?" He wondered if he would ever become unconfused at this point. "Stubby Boardman sang this? The man that the Quibbler claimed Sirius was last year?"

She said "This is Stubby Boardman's Christmas album. Not Sirius Black's. You said you heard it last year but said that Sirius sung it. They're not the same person. I'm sorry if the Quibbler mislead you into thinking that was Sirius."

Now Harry realized what she thought he meant, although he didn't really understand entirely. "No, I didn't hear this record last year. I heard Sirius sing this song in person. I thought he had made it up because there was a hippogriff staying in the house. I had no idea it was a real song until right now."

"Oh!" Luna seemed to follow him. "I thought you recognized it when I played it. Stubby had a distinctive singing voice, there's still a lot of impersonators out there."

Harry shook his head, "I grew up with Muggles, remember? I've never heard him."

He added, "I'd love a copy of this record if you know where I can get one." He knew he couldn't just take that copy from the Room, it would disappear when he left, as Hermione had discovered when she had attempted to leave with some books. She had been annoyed, she thought she had found a infinite supply of books.

Luna nodded, "Right." She thought for a second and frowned. "It is a rather unlikely coincidence that Sirius would be singing that song. I've never heard anyone else sing it, it's not a very good song. After I ran out of the party, and could think again, I realized that they were intending that music to be _God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen_, not the parody."

But Harry had been thinking about that also, and had figured it out.

He smiled. "Luna, I now have two things to thank you for. Not only did you just now remind me of that memory, but you, or at least the Quibbler, caused it in the first place, with that crazy article. Ron and Ginny's father gave a copy of that Quibbler to Sirius a few months before Christmas as a joke, and he probably was singing that song for that reason. It was Christmas and there was a hippogriff in the house, so it was an obvious choice of Stubby songs."

"Was he any good?" Luna asked.

Harry laughed, "No, he was absolutely horrible."

Luna smiled for a second, and then laughed along with him, "My mother couldn't dance either. She kept stepping on everyone's feet, even her own. We had to make her dance barefoot while we wore shoes, so it didn't hurt."

And just like that, Harry knew Luna would be okay.

He stood up, and tapped the record player. As it started _God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs_ again, he held out a hand and said, "Luna, would you like to dance?".

She smiled, stood up, and said, "I would love to. Would you like to sing along?"

He nodded, and they danced and sung their way through the song. Luna couldn't dance, and Harry couldn't sing, but that seemed just about right.

Afterward, he gave her a hug, and they headed back to their respective dorms, Harry whistling and Luna skipping.


End file.
